Greek Mythology - Hercules

3rd Labor

The Stymfalian Birds - Οι Στυμφαλίδες Όρνιθες

In English

In the town of Stimfalou of Arkadia there were some wild birds with
wings of bronze, and beaks and nails of copper. Everybody was terrified of these
birds. They were attacking and killing animals and humans. The most important thing
about these birds, was their ability to throw parts of their bronze wings,
like arrows down to earth killing everyone trying to harm them.

Eurystheus called Hercules and ordered him to kill these birds.
It was very difficult even for Hercules to execute this order, because of the
special abilities of the Stimfalian birds.
Goddess Athena helped Hercules with this task. She gave him two rattles, and told
him to go close to the birds' nests and hide. There, Hercules should start to
hit the rattles.
The birds they would then try to fly away because of the noise, and Hercules would be able
to kill them as they were trying to flee. So he did.

The birds started to fly all together making circles in the sky throwing
their deadly feathers to the ground.
None of their feathers hit Hercules.
One after another they were falling dead from Hercules' arrows. The ones that
survived flew away and never returned to the area again.
Hercules finished the task and returned to Tirintha (Tiryns) where
Eurystheus was waiting with more orders...

Words you Need to Learn

Capital letters is where the word is accented.ee or i is pronounced as the ee in word beet.e as the e in the word bet.a as the a in the word father.o as the o in the word only.ou as the ou in the word Lou.x as the x in the word fox.th or th like the th in think.th or th like the th in this.
(underline)
Where you see a " y " or a (red) " g " in the phonetics for that
word, that " g " is
pronounced like the y in yes, or
like the w in wad